All three could be designed by Boston architect
Miguel Rosales
, making Cleveland the only city in the United States with three signature spans by the nationally admired designer.

"These projects are trying to help the image of the city and the economy," Rosales said Wednesday during a visit to Cleveland to meet with clients. "If a bridge is exciting and attractive, people want to come see it and use it. They become like a magnet."

Last week, Cuyahoga County began negotiating a contract with Rosales to design a 700-foot span that would vault pedestrians and cyclists over a lakefront industrial zone from the Willow Street Lift Bridge north to
Wendy Park
on
Whiskey Island
.

A selection committee picked his firm, Rosales + Partners, as the best of three contenders.

An early concept for the bridge shows how an elevated walkway could be supported on pencil-thin masts with diagonal steel cables evoking the image of sailboats bobbing at anchor.

County officials want two more design concepts from Rosales and are hoping to complete plans by next summer. Construction would begin when the money is raised. County officials hope to seek the bulk of funding through a federal grant program.

Rosales also signed a contract earlier this week with Case Western Reserve University to study possibilities for a pedestrian bridge extending west from the Cleveland Museum of Art over Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to the site of the future CWRU West Campus on East 105th Street. University trustees could get a glimpse of early concepts in October.

Rosales started work for the city of Cleveland on proposals for a pedestrian drawbridge at North Coast Harbor in March, 2009, and completed half a dozen concepts in August 2009. The city is awaiting a decision from the Federal Aviation Administration on which of two preferred Rosales proposals can proceed. A city official said Friday an answer is expected in "the near term."

Rosales is partnering with the engineering firm of
Schlaich Bergermann
and the Cleveland office of
Wilbur Smith Associates
on the North Coast Harbor project and with Schlaich and the Cleveland office of the engineering firm of
DLZ
on the Whiskey Island project.

All three projects are part of a national trend in which cities are using multipurpose walkways and trails to connect neighborhoods to cultural amenities, parks and waterfronts.

The idea is to humanize urban environments, to encourage exercise and to give people alternatives to the automobile.

"Suddenly, there's this momentum building behind the notion of connecting activity nodes with pedestrian and bicycle-scale facilities," said Richard Kerber, director of planning, design and natural resources for the Cleveland Metroparks.

Kerber served on a committee of community experts and public officials that recommended Rosales for the county's Whiskey Island project, which is supported strongly by the city of Cleveland.

He said the pedestrian-bridge projects show that government agencies in particular have come to realize that good design doesn't have to cost more than generic or "cookbook" design, as he put it.

"Clients in the public sector oftentimes are afraid to let our [design] consultants be creative, because we're afraid that good design costs more," he said. "The future of design in Cleveland is to prove that's just not the case."

Cleveland has secured $4.5 million for the North Coast Harbor bridge and is willing to add the required $1 million match.

Budgets and funding for the other two projects, now in the earliest stages, have not been determined, said sources involved with the proposals.

Rosales said he hoped that compelling designs for the bridges would help sponsors of the projects raise money to pay for them. He also said that investments in pedestrian bridges can spur investment in surrounding properties and boost local economies.

"It's a catalyst, and the investment is not too big," he said.

In Greenville, S.C., a $4.5 million pedestrian bridge over the
Reedy River
helped transform a blighted part of the city's downtown and spurred $100 million in residential and office development, Mayor Knox White said in an interview in 2007.

Rosales said he's aware that if he completes three bridges in Cleveland, each will have to be distinct; he won't be able to repeat himself.

He said the designs will grow out of the unique circumstances of each site.

At Whiskey Island, for example, he wants something that will stand up to the industrial toughness of the setting, which includes piles of bulk materials and industrial facilities serving the Cargill salt mine and Ontario Stone Corp.

All three Cleveland projects have grown out of extensive community-planning efforts in recent years.

The North Coast Harbor bridge will be an outcome of the city's lakefront plan, undertaken during the administration of former Mayor Jane Campbell.

A pedestrian bridge over Doan Brook and MLK Jr. Drive was included in CWRU's 2005 master plan, said
Margaret Carney
, the university's architect. CWRU wants to create a strong pedestrian link between its main campus, east of East Boulevard, and its future West Campus, located west of East 105th Street.

The Whiskey Island pedestrian bridge is part of the Link to the Lake Trail project initiated by the nonprofit organization ParkWorks in 2009.

The idea is to connect neighborhoods on the city's near West Side to the closest lakefront park on Whiskey Island, and to the future Towpath Trail network extending more than 100 miles south of the city.

Cuyahoga County secured $160,000 in planning money for the project from the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Wendy Park Foundation kicked in another $83,000, which exceeded the amount required for local matching dollars by roughly $14,000.

The city of Cleveland will also spend $100,000 to enhance sidewalks on the Willow Street Lift Bridge, which connects Whiskey Island to the West Bank of the Flats and neighborhoods to the south.

Greg Peckham, director of
Cleveland Public Art
, which is working on the lake link trail system with ParkWorks, said the Whiskey Island pedestrian bridge would "be the most immediate direct access for thousands of residents in Ohio City and Tremont, and particularly for families at Riverview," a public housing complex.

"People could ride their bikes there and put their feet in the water," Peckham said. "It would help build a groundswell for connecting more neighborhoods to the waterfront."